Pages

Thursday, August 31, 2017

Time for me to practice what I preach, folks. If I tell my Education majors something is good practice for teachers, I better be doing it in my own teaching, right?

In my pedagogy-oriented courses, I often emphasize the role that assessment plays in teaching. I often talk with my students about the importance of setting objectives, aligning appropriate assessment vehicles to these objectives, and then ensuring that our instructional moves will actually support students' learning of those objectives. When I say "assessment vehicles," students often jump immediately to tests and quizzes, but there are, of course, lots of other possible ways to assess students' knowledge, understanding, and skills.

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

My wife calls this my "first day of school"outfit. (She's not wrong...)

It's the first day of school for me for this academic year. Ah, the beginnings: the excitement, the nervousness, the joy, the fun of meeting up with new students, the even-more-fun of meeting up with students I've taught before who already know me...

I love this about teaching: the rhythm of the year with beginnings, middles, and endings makes it feel like a new journey each time. Today was stepping out at the start of a new expedition, and it was a joy, honestly.

The first day of class is a challenge though. How deep can we go on the first day, when they haven't read anything, or written anything, or prepared anything? Do I just have introductions and go over the syllabus? And who wants to do that for 75 minutes? (Ugh!)

Monday, August 28, 2017

Tomorrow morning I will enter the classroom again, beginning my 20th year as a professional educator. I am excited! And...I have the jitters again, as usual.

This fall I'm teaching a new course. I'm adding World Regional Geography to my repertoire, and I'm really excited for this! I love geography, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to help my students expand their view of the world.

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Facebook is a weird partial record of parts of my life that I decide to show online. It's always a little interesting to see what pops up in my personal "this day in Facebook history" each day. For instance, this one was today, six years ago:

The comments in response to this post (there were 20 of them!) were pretty funny to read through. Some were encouraging, like a former student who said, "People ask you for help cause your AWESOME!!!" Some were a little more pointed, such as the family member who said, "Build a bridge and get over it..." Others were empathetic, along the lines of a friend from church who responded, "I had that too!" And still others were just a little weird, like a college friend who suggested, "Just duct tape your thumbs down and explain it can't be down without opposable thumbs." (I love that last one...)

I'm reflecting back, trying to remember exactly what the context was. I know I was serving as Technology Coordinator in a K-8 school at that time, and given that it was nearing the first day of school, I suspect this was in response to a whole slew of, "Hey, Dave...can you help me a minute with ________?"

There were a lot of those kinds of questions, honestly. And it's in my nature to try and be helpful. This comes out of a sense of obligation to doing excellent work at my professional commitments, sure. But, when I'm honest about it, it's also partly out of a drive to want people to think highly of me, to see me as some kind of Superman who can swoop in to save the day.

That's insidious, isn't it? But, as I've written before (here and here), the challenge for me is that if I can do something, it's often a quick slide to I should do something. When people come asking for my help and I can help, does that automatically mean I should do the thing they are asking me to do?

I'm not Superman. I cannot do all of the things. I should not do all of the things.

And yet...there is this awful pull for me that somehow I feel like I'm letting people down if I don't.

So this year, I'm practicing saying "no." I am working on making my default response to requests a kind, gentle "no." After four crazy years of grad school while working full time, my hope is that I'll be able to better prioritize in my life. By saying "no" to most things--even the good things--I'll be better able to say "yes" to things that I really need to devote my attention toward, and be excellent at those things. Call it a year of Sabbath...or a Year of Jubilee, even.

So, if you ask me to help out and I say "no," please don't be offended. It's not you. It's just that I'm not Superman. :-)

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Last week I again had the privilege of serving at Royal Family Kids Camp, an annual, one-week camp for kids in the foster care system. Each summer I've served--this was year 3 for me--I feel like I need to process the week in writing, to make sense of the things that I've experienced, felt, and learned through my service. This summer is no different, though it's taking longer for me this time around.

Image courtesy Royal Family Kids of NW Iowa. All rights reserved.

We returned from Camp on Friday afternoon, and I was wiped out. I suspect most of us were, actually. We had 53 campers, and almost 100 staff members working with them both in 1-on-1 roles as Guides ("counselor" often has a different connotation for kids in foster care) or, as I was serving, in a supporting role. It's a demanding week, no matter the capacity in which you serve. Our goal is to lavish love on the kids who are there, being fully-present, nurturing influences in their lives for a week. But that kind of "always on" takes a toll, and by Friday I was wiped out.

Disclaimer

You know the ideas here are just mine, right? This weblog does not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans, or strategies of my employer. The ideas shared here are solely my opinion.

The information in this weblog is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights. It's basically just a place for me to work out ideas and get some feedback on them from friends and others.

Feel free to agree with me, disagree with me, affirm me, challenge me, or tell me I’m completely nuts in the comments section of each blog entry, but I reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason whatsoever (abusive, profane, rude, spammy, or anonymous comments) – so keep it polite, please.